


Across the Sea

by violet_storms



Series: femslash february 2021 [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion, F/F, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:35:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29213532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_storms/pseuds/violet_storms
Summary: Alana, Freddie, the ocean, the shore: a love story in four parts.
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Freddie Lounds
Series: femslash february 2021 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144880
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Across the Sea

Alana dreams of the ocean. It doesn’t make sense.

She has spent half her life on the beach. They live by the seaside; she grew up on the sand. How many times has she walked along the shore? Too many to count, a thousand thousand moments, enough by far to get sick of the waves and their constant push and pull Alana is tired of the sand, tired of the shells that line her shelves, tired of the water.

Still, every night, she dreams of the ocean.

In Alana’s dreams the ocean is cornflower blue and deeper than deep, rich and gleaming and fathomless. In her dreams it is a place of mystery, of tales untold. When she opens her eyes and looks out her window, she's disappointed to see the same green waves she has always known. No mysteries there, only long-remembered stories from her childhood, a place so familiar it has become boring.

Once, when Alana was eleven, she tried to swim to the edge of the ocean to look for the cornflower deeps. After endless strokes of her arms and gasps that filled her mouth with salt water, she was no closer to the horizon, and the waves were as green as they had always been. Eventually exhaustion won over and the tides carried her back to the shore. Her mother screamed when she saw Alana floating limp on her back, but Alana swears her head never dipped beneath the waves, almost like someone was cradling it in their hands.

(Someone was.)

  


Freddie dreams of the shore. It doesn’t make sense.

She has spent all her life underwater. She lives in a castle of coral and pearls; she can speak to sea creatures, and go swimming through shipwrecks. Her existence is made up of buried treasures and flowers that bloom only under the sea, secrets no human will ever know. What can life above water offer her that she does not already have? Nothing and nothing, empty promises of sunshine and fresh air. Mermaids do not need fresh air.

Still, every night, she dreams of the shore.

In Freddie’s dreams she sees a city rising from the earth, bright and glittering and alive. She sees castles built from dry sand and sunlight that warms her instead of burning her skin. When she opens her eyes she is momentarily disappointed to see a fish’s tail instead of two long legs. No running along the water’s edge for Freddie. She will never be like the dark-haired girl with laughing eyes whose life she once saved.

Her sisters still think there could have been another way, but the tides are unforgiving, and the dark-haired girl would have been swept away in seconds had Freddie not intervened. She guided her back to the shore carefully, gently, out of sight. Before leaving her in the shallows, Freddie cast a glance back at the city above the sea. It was just as beautiful as it had seemed in her dreams. And just as impossible.

  


They do not see each other again for another eleven years.

Alana moves away from the seaside, trading sand and seashells for snow-capped forests. Freddie retreats back into the deeps, avoiding the rays of the sun’s light even through the water. They both learn to dream of other things. They come close to forgetting.

Until one summer, twenty-two year old Alana Bloom comes home from university and decides to go for a swim in the ocean. She cannot say what makes her do it, what drives her to keep swimming and swimming until the shore is a speck in the distance, just as Freddie cannot say what makes her choose to come to the surface for the first time in eleven years. When she does, she sees the same dark-haired head struggling to stay above the waves.

“How many times must I save your life?” she whispers as she pulls her through the water. Alana barely hears her. Freddie takes her to the empty shore and knows that she should leave, trust that the girl will be safe and well, but instead she lingers in shallow water. It has been so long since she has seen the sun. She wants to relish it for a while.

When Alana coughs up salt water and finally sits up straight, the first thing she sees is a red-haired woman her own age sitting next to her on the sand. The second thing she sees is a fish’s tail the color of sea glass extending from her body. She does not scream or freeze in shock, but looks up to meet the woman’s eyes.

“Hair like fire,” says Alana. “I remember you.”

  


No deals are made.

Freddie is smarter than to make trades with sea witches. She will not gamble her voice, or exchange her scales for steps that feel like knives in her feet. Alana is not willing to throw her life to the winds for the sake of a recurring dream. There are other ways to be together. They will teach them to themselves.

Alana races down the shore. Freddie follows in the water. Alana dives from a cliff. Freddie meets her at the bottom. Alana takes pictures. Freddie tells stories. Alana dreams of the ocean, and Freddie dreams of the shore, but their everyday lives meet somewhere in the middle.

One day when she has saved up enough, Alana buys a boat with windows and a bed. She names her _Fire Lily_ and sails her out into the water where Freddie waits for her. “Will you take me to the ocean?” says Alana. “The real ocean?”

Freddie smiles.

In another life, they meet somewhere below the water. In another life, they meet somewhere above the waves. In this life, one walks and one swims and both love, and they split their time between sea and shore, somewhere across the sea.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>    
> 


End file.
